Library Let Down

A succession of small indignities this week.  Having my bike stolen has many down sides, but one big one is that I just realized the Belmont Public Library is only a mile and a half from my office on a lovely bike trail.  And they had a copy of Call The Midwife in, which I've really wanted to read, though I think I might have gotten myself too invested in reading the book before watching the show.  But I can't get over there and back in less than an hour without the bike (even with the car, between the walk to the lot and the horrific traffic at Fresh Pond), so I have to wait till I can buy a new bike.  SIGH!

I think, with a memoir like this, reading the book first is a good idea if you want to do both.  I'm assuming it's something like All Creatures Great and Small, which is a charming book and a charming TV show, but which is very episodic in nature.  A TV program (or, in these cases, programme) tends to create narrative arc which is often not there in this kind of story.  But most of the raves I've been hearing are for the show, so maybe I'll just skip the book this time.  It's not like my To Read list isn't longer than my expected lifespan already.

The other library let down this week requires a bit more explanation, because I have not been blogging in the right order.  This past winter, I went through an extremely obsessive thing with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I watched the whole series (except a couple of early episodes I skipped before I realized what I was doing), read the Season 8 comics, then caught up with Season 9, Angel & Faith, etc. But I was so absorbed with it, so jumbled up with FEELINGS that I didn't really blog any of that.  (I was also embarrassingly aware of the fact that I came into this about six months after a bunch of bloggers had done a watch-along, so I was stumbling late to the internet.)

So far, I've only reviewed Angel & Faith. I want to write about Season 8, and about what I think about Season 9 so far, and I'm waiting for Spike: A Dark Place from the library, and I just got to read Willow: Wonderland as an ARC (I have never felt so privileged, pretty much literally). So there are some more posts forthcoming. But for the purposes of this post, I'm pretty much out of new Buffy.

So I was scrounging when I came upon the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus.  This is the collection of comics that were released while the show was still on, starting with a graphic novel adaptation of Joss Whedon's original screenplay for the movie, which was up there with Heathers on the rewatch list of my high school friends and stars Kristy Swanson and Luke Perry.  It is very different from the TV show (again, think Heathers), and that part of the comic was not my favorite, but the rest--which tells more about Buffy's life between her expulsion in LA and her arrival in Sunnydale--was really excellent.  And it was written when the series was in its later seasons, so all the earlier stories are told with Dawn in them, which is weird and very cool.

So the point of this post, though, was that I was surprised to find myself in possession of some really good Buffy that fills a big gaping hole of need in my life.  Unfortunately, volume 2 is elusive--BPL doesn't have it, and Minuteman has very few copies.  Fortunately, one of those is at my local library, and as of Monday afternoon, checked in.

So I made time to drop by Tuesday before work.  And apparently, in the 18 hours between when I discovered the existence of this volume and arrived to take possession, some OTHER Medford Buffy fanatic absconded with it.  I am vexed, I tell you, vexed and bitter.

And now I've told you the really boring bones of my Buffy obsession without talking about what I think or feel or anything.  So upcoming in the next week, look for a review of Willow: Wonderland and some thoughts on Season 8 and Season 9, possibly together in one post.

C'mon, whoever has this checked out.  How long does it take to read comics?